There are several methods for the diagnosis and assessment of allergies. If you suspect allergy you are strongly advised to consult a doctor. Allergy symptoms often look like the symptoms of other illnesses and you may easily confuse them to ones of other illnesses. Very often allergy is confused with colds. The qualified specialist will do special tests to diagnose your problems .
The most usual way of diagnosing allergies is the skin test. It comprises the series of pricks with extracts of suspended allergens which are injected under the skin. The specialists take the most commonly met allergens – pollen, animal dander, eggs, dust extracts. After 30 minutes the reaction will be revealed. If the person is sensitive to an allergen, the part of skin where it was injected will redden. After using the pricks doctors usually apply special creams - steroid creams to lessen the unpleasant effects. The reaction may come out in 6 hours or even in 24 hours. As a result the injected part of skin can be seriously damaged. This most often used test has a number of drawbacks:
- The basic drawback of the method is the delayed sensitivity (DHS) of some patients.
- Another problem with it is that it can increase the sensitivity to a number of allergens.
- And one more disadvantage is the impossibility to test the specific allergies.
The skin test is cheaper than the RAST and it can be done in the doctor’s office.
One more method is RAST(radioallergosorbent test). It can sometimes be called the CAP-RAST or ImmunoCap test. A RAST test requires a blood sample. The sample is sent to a medical laboratory where tests are done to determine whether the patient has IgE antibodies. Using it we can measure the levels the amount of IgE specific to certain allergens. The method generally consists of measuring the amount of serum IgE contained within the patient's serum. This can be determined through the use of radiometric and colormetric immunoassays. The doctors prefer this test the patient has some skin problems, such as eczema what makes difficult reading the results on he patent’s skin.
While taking different tests the doctor (allergist) will also ask you the questions about your relatives, that is if they had any allergies. The bigger part of allergies is inherited. It means if one of your parents had allergies you are likely to have an allergy too. It doesn’t mean that you have the allergy when you are born; you only have the likelihood to gain it under circumstances.
| 
